All of us experience swings in our ego and confidence from day-to-day. When we are on a winning streak, it’s easy for the head to start to inflate. When we’ve hit a few roadblocks and things aren’t quite going our way, it’s easy to fall into a pattern of worry and quiet. Neither is ideal for operations.
I used to be bad about letting my ego do the talking for me. I’d focus on what things meant to me personally instead of just getting on with the job. It’s an easy thing to do when you think you know more about a topic than anyone else. Problem is, operating like that leads down the path of ego vs. ego instead of getting things done.
My current process is to try and stick to just the facts. If you remove ego entirely from the decision-making process, you allow everything to be driven based on the known information. At the end of the day, getting the job done is why we each have a job. If ego is more likely to cause problems than simplify the solution process, why let it influence what is going on?